The Dormant Account(Spiaci účet)
A film byMiloslav Luther
Two timelines. One buried truth.
Across generations, private lives and the shadows of wartime Slovakia, these images reveal a family mystery whose consequences reach beyond those who first concealed it.
Film stills from The Dormant Account (Spiaci účet).
An inheritance that comes at a different kind of price.
When a young couple discovers a hidden message inside an inherited painting, their search for answers uncovers a troubling family secret reaching back to the Second World War.
Adam and Hela, a young married couple facing financial difficulties, decide to sell a valuable painting inherited from their grandparents. But when they uncover a concealed message within it, their search for its meaning leads them into a complicated family history.
Their investigation connects the present with wartime Slovakia, revealing a past shaped by greed, the seizure of Jewish property and choices whose consequences have endured for generations. The inheritance could transform their future—but accepting it may require confronting the circumstances in which it was acquired.
Including Best Feature Film · 2025 Igric Award for Screenplay — Miloslav Luther
Two generations separated by time. Connected by a secret.
In the present, Adam and Hela are trying to build a future together. Their discovery sends them searching through family history, where familiar names and inherited possessions begin to take on new meanings.
The film's second timeline returns to wartime Slovakia, revealing the circumstances that shaped the family's past. As the two narratives unfold, events separated by decades become increasingly connected, challenging the idea that history can remain distant or finished.
What is the true value of an inheritance?
During the Second World War, Jewish families and business owners in Slovakia faced persecution and systematic property confiscation. The film addresses this history through Aryanisation—the forced transfer of Jewish-owned property and businesses into non-Jewish hands.
For Adam and Hela, discovering the origins of their inheritance creates a moral dilemma. They did not make their ancestors' choices, yet they may benefit from them. Can inherited wealth be separated from the injustice through which it was acquired?
Some secrets survive longer than the people who keep them.
Family history lives in photographs, inherited possessions and stories passed down—along with the stories no one was willing to tell.
A single painting becomes the starting point for an investigation into what a family has remembered, what it has concealed and what its descendants are prepared to discover. Adam and Hela must reconsider not only the people who came before them, but their own understanding of responsibility and truth.
Miloslav Luther
A filmmaker exploring history, human conscience and the lasting consequences of moral choices.
Miloslav Luther is a Slovak director and screenwriter whose work spans decades of cinema and television. Educated at FAMU in Prague, he has often examined historical events through the choices and responsibilities of individual people.
His films include A Path Across the Danube, Angel of Mercy, Escape to Buda and A Step Into the Dark. In The Dormant Account, a family mystery becomes a reflection on inherited wealth, historical injustice and conscience.
In 2025, Luther received a Sun in a Net honour for his contribution to Slovak audiovisual culture. His screenplay for this film also received an Igric Award.
Slovak cinema on the big screen in Calgary.
Join us at the Calgary European Film Festival for The Dormant Account (Spiaci účet), a historical drama about an inherited painting, wartime injustice and the moral decisions facing a new generation.
Saturday, November 14, 2026.
A Slovak historical drama.
Presented in Slovak with English subtitles.
Discover the people behind the mystery.
Meet the characters connecting past and present, and explore the filmmakers behind Miloslav Luther's historical drama.
Some debts are not measured in money.
A hidden message connects the past and present, revealing how questions of justice and responsibility can outlast the people whose decisions created them.
See The Dormant Account at CEFF.
(Spiaci účet)